Sponsored Links

Major Ford India Announcement Coming Tomorrow

Sponsored Links

Ford Motor Company is getting ready to make a “significant and exciting global announcement” in India tomorrow, according to Indian website Autocar Professional. The announcement will signify “a major stride in [Ford’s] commitment to India, innovation, and One Ford.” Executive Chairman Bill Ford and other senior leadership will be present in Chennai, India for the announcement.

Some rethinking of the automaker’s Indian operations was alluded to at its annual Investor Day on September 15th, at which a presentation said that “Ford is re-evaluating its strategy and business model for India.” The carmaker held a market share of just 2.8 percent through fiscal year 2015 in India’s passenger car space, according to Statista – not great for a market that’s expected to become the world’s third-largest by 2019.

What’s more, between Ford’s two production facilities in the country – in Chennai, Tamil Nadu and Sanand, Gujarat – the automaker has only produced 189,443 passenger vehicles over the past year out of a total annual production capacity of about 440k units, according to Autocar Professional. Nearly 111k units were produced for export. Ford India currently produces the Ford Figo and Figo Aspire, Endeavour (a.k.a. “Everest”) SUV, and EcoSport crossover.

Back in February, news broke that Ford India would develop a new platform to underpin a majority of its products built for emerging global markets. Ford hopes to transform its Indian division into an engineering/development and production hub in its own right.

Sponsored Links

— Aaron Brzozowski

Aaron Brzozowski is a writer and motoring enthusiast from Detroit with an affinity for '80s German steel. He is not active on the Twitter these days, but you may send him a courier pigeon.